2 I The Blue Banner 1 9.282011
Katie Allen - Staff Photographer
Hart Crane, James "Bo" Ferguson and political science chair Linda Cornett talk in a meet and greet at a reception celebrating Ferguson's civil rights work.
Local civil rights leader heads equality efforts
Jackie Starkey
jstarkey@unca.edu - Staff Writer
Fifty years after the initial
desegregation of Pack Library,
the UNC Asheville Intercultur-
al Center will join forces with
the community and prominent
civil rights attorney James
“Bo” Ferguson to shape public
awareness surrounding remain
ing racial inequality in Western
North Carolina.
“There are divisions,” said
Deborah Miles, director for
the center for diversity edu
cation. “Legal standings, eco
nomic divides, who goes to
college, who gets internships,
race and networking influences
all these things.”
With the city of Asheville
celebrating 50 years of racial
equality in public libraries.
Miles said he feels like now
is the time for the current in
equalities to be brought to light
and social changes to be made.
“Movements don’t just hap
pen, all kinds of things have to
take place,” Miles said. “We
are still in that progression.
We haven’t gotten (to equality)
yet.”
This semester, UNCA has
brought on Ferguson as an hon
orary professor.
Ferguson is a founding mem
ber of the Asheville Student
Commitee on Racial Equality,
the student organization which
fought for African American
"It was a position
born in necessity
and opportunity
that we were able
to get involved and
make a difference,
and we did."
James "Bo" Ferguson
civil rights lawyer
equality in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Ferguson said he hopes em
powering students with com
munication skills will increase
civic engagement concerning
civil rights issues, as it did dur
ing the civil rights movement.
“We wanted to become in
volved. We wanted to learn
about the problem, negotiate
the problem and then take the
proper direct action to resolve
it,” Ferguson said.
These steps are the building
blocks towards a program to
increase opportunities for mi
nority groups and equalize the
social and economical dispari
ties, according to Miles.
Miles said she hopes to use
the progress of the movement to
instruct a conference of middle-
schoolers and UNCA students.
Ferguson said the conference
will improve networking skills
and give students the tools to
become leaders in the public
arena.
“The cool thing about AS-
CORE is that it is a peer-to-peer
model,” Miles said. “We hope
to instrument various programs
that will allow children to be
mentored, build networks, pre
pare for college and teach them
how to identify the problems
and solve them.”
Involvement in the programs
supports diversity education
for students and teachers, Fer
guson said.
“Sometimes teachers are the
only guidance students have,”
said Devin Gaynor, a UNCA
junior and a teaching fellow.
“The bottom line is to teach
kids to have healthy relation-
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